d against the sky,--a sign of promise,
prophetic of bacon.

About noon the road passed beyond the region of habitation into a barren
land, where blueberries were the only crop, and partridges took the
place of chickens. Through this rolling gravelly plain, sparsely wooded
and glowing with the tall magenta bloom of the fireweed, we drove toward
the mountains, until the road went to seed and we could follow it no
longer. Then we took to the water and began to pole our canoes up the
River of the Bear. It was a clear, amber-coloured stream, not more than
ten or fifteen yards wide, running swift and strong, over beds of sand
and rounded pebbles. The canoes went wallowing and plunging up the
narrow channel, between thick banks of alders, like clumsy sea-monsters.
All the grace with which they move under the strokes of the paddle, in
large waters, was gone. They looked uncouth and predatory, like a pair
of seals that I once saw swimming far up the river Ristigouche in chase
of fish. From the bow of each canoe the landing-net stuck out as a
symbol of destruction--after the fashion of the Dutch admiral who nailed
a broom to his masthead. But it would have been impossible to sweep the
trout out of that little river by any fair method of angling, for there
were millions of them; not large, but lively, and brilliant, and fat;
they leaped in every bend of the stream. We trailed our flies, and made
quick casts here and there, as we went along. It was fishing on the
wing. And when we pitched our tents in a hurry at nightfall on the low
shore of Lac Sale, among the bushes where firewood was scarce and there
were no sapins for the beds, we were comforted for the poorness of the
camp-ground by the excellence of the trout supper.

It was a bitter cold night for August. There was a skin of ice on the
water-pail at daybreak. We were glad to be up and away for an early
start. The river grew wilder and more difficult. There were rapids, and
ruined dams built by the lumbermen years ago. At these places the trout
were larger, and so plentiful that it was easy to hook two at a cast. It
came on to rain furiously while we were eating our lunch. But we did not
seem to mind it any more than the fish did. Here and there the river
was completely blocked by fallen trees. The guides called it bouchee,
"corked," and leaped out gayly into the water with their axes to
"uncork" it. We passed through some pretty lakes, unknown to the
map-makers, and arrived